


Pineapple Pizza

by RoyaltyOverReality



Category: Gone Series - Michael Grant
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Pineapple on Pizza Discourse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyaltyOverReality/pseuds/RoyaltyOverReality
Summary: A story about controversial pizza toppings (and holding onto to hope, no matter what).
Relationships: Diana Ladris/Caine Soren, Diana Ladris/Original Female Character
Kudos: 7





	Pineapple Pizza

**October 2007:**

"What are you eating?" Caine asked

"Pizza?" Diana answered. "I know you're pretty dumb, but I thought that was obvious."

"No. That is NOT pizza," Caine said. "It is an affront against society."

At twelve years old, Caine tended to think that using fancy words with dramatic connotations helped get his point across better. So, Diana wasn't surprised to see him getting so worked up. 

"It's good," Diana said, in between bites.

"But it has  _ pineapple  _ on it!" Caine protested. 

"So what?" Diana asked.

"How can you say that, Diana? I thought you were above this," Caine said. 

"Above this?" Diana laughed. 

For the next two years, Diana ordered pineapple pizza any opportunity she could get. She even started an online petition to get the Coates Academy cafeteria to get rid of all other types of pizza, entirely to annoy Caine. She shared it with the Coates Academy Facebook group and got almost 20 signatures, which was more than she had been expecting. Caine responded by trying to ban her from the Facebook group.

**March 2009:**

"You have to be lying," Diana said. "You're telling me that if you had a piping hot slice of pizza in front of you right now, you wouldn't eat it?"

"No, I wouldn't," Caine said. 

His stomach growled loudly, but he tried to keep a confident smile on his face. There was an emptiness in his eyes, which had always been cold, but never this devoid of feeling. Diana cold remember when they glittered with deception and malicious intent. But now, she couldn't see any hunger for power reflected in them, only hunger.

"You don't mean that," Diana said. "You'd eat it." 

"I'd rather starve," Caine said. 

He laughed. It was an empty, cynical sound. But it was the first laugh that Diana had heard in a few weeks.

"We're already starving," Diana countered. "So, you've got your wish."

"Do you have to bring me down like this?" Caine asked. "Go back to talking about pineapple pizza. It's making me lose my appetite."

"What, you don't like thinking about sweet, juicy pineapple on top of greasy cheese and spicy sauce?" Diana teased.

"Was pizza sauce spicy?" Caine asked. "I don't even remember."

Diana wasn't sure either. How long had it been since she had last had a slice of pizza. It must have been some time back in November, in the early days of the FAYZ. 

"I think it was," Diana said. "At least, if the pizza was good, it was."

"I would take your word for it, but I don't trust your opinions on pizza," Caine said. "Pineapple on pizza. Jesus, that's just wrong."

Even though it was only making her hungry, there was something familiar about the old argument. It was almost as if they had gone back to the way things were before the FAYZ. Diana couldn't help but smile.

**May 2009:**

"Dinner is served!" Diana announced.

She placed the cloche she had found in the Brattle-Chance family's pantry on the dining table, in front of Caine.

"This is nice," Caine said. "What did you do to it? Are you trying to poison me so you can have this island all to yourself?"

"Worse," Diana said with a smirk.

"Dear God," Caine said, as he lifted the lid of the cloche. "What did you do to this poor pizza?"

"I put pineapple on it, genius," Diana said.

"Yes, but why?" Caine said.

"Because I know you're not going to turn it down," Diana said. "We're putting this argument to rest, once and for all. You're going to eat pineapple pizza, and you're going to like it."

"I refuse."

"You refuse? How formal."

"If this was all a scheme to get a whole pizza to yourself, congratulations. You succeeded."

Diana laughed incredulously.

"Really? After everything, you're still not even going to try it?" 

"No, I'm not. I can make my dinner for myself."

Caine stood up, walked out of the dining room, and into the kitchen. She could faintly hear the beep of microwave buttons as Caine prepared something else to eat.

Diana felt tempted to eat the whole pizza herself, right then and there. She didn't want to end up feeling sick in the morning or later that night. She also wanted to test Caine, to make sure he wouldn't waste food after they had been starving for so long. Even he couldn't be that arrogant and stubborn.

Diana left the pizza out on the dinner table and went to sleep. If Caine didn't eat it, Bug would. The next morning, when Diana woke up, she went downstairs to the dining room and noticed that the pizza was gone, but the plate was still there. That wasn't any indicator of whether Caine or Bug had been the one to eat it. 

Neither of them ever did any dishes. It made Diana feel like an overworked housewife with an inattentive husband and two bratty children sometimes. The idea of herself, Caine, Bug, and Penny as a happy, loving family made Diana laugh. 

Diana picked up the plate, took it into the kitchen, and set it in the sink. She would wash it after breakfast. She opened the refrigerator to see if there was anything that she could use to make breakfast. There weren't any fresh ingredients. All of those had gone bad a long time ago, but there was a Tupperware full of pineapple. Caine must have washed it and put it in the fridge after picking it off the pizza.

**July 2014:**

Diana didn't go out to parties very often. Ever since she had gotten sober, she didn't like the atmosphere. Parties were too loud, too busy, too tempting. She preferred hanging out with a small group of friends, maybe four or five people. That way, she could drift in and out of the conversation as needed without seeming distant. As much as she hated to admit it, sometimes she still needed to do that, especially when she was talking to people who weren't FAYZ survivors. 

But when Quinn announced that he was having a fourth of July party, Diana decided she had to go. Seeing people that reminded her of the past was hard. But Diana felt obligated to show up because it had been a few months since she had seen Sam or Astrid, and since she had lived with them for over a year, she wanted to show them that she was still doing fine without them.

When she got to the party, she was thankful that her mental health had been in a decent state when she woke up that morning. It made it easy to mingle with people she had barely known in the FAYZ, even though they all knew who she was. A lot of people told her things like, "I never liked you back in the FAYZ, but I guess you're alright now." Others weren't so kind.

People avoided talking about the FAYZ. However, conversations would often wander to the subject since it was the only thing connecting everyone at the party. Whenever that happened, people would inevitably shift the topic of conversation over to food.

"Have you been to any new restaurants recently?"

"I just tried this amazing new dish! If you give me your email, I can send you the recipe." 

And most often of all, "When is the food going to get here?"

When it was finally time for dinner, Quinn unloaded two whole picnic tables full of pizza with every combination of toppings possible.

Just as Diana was about to get in the line for food, a short girl bounded up to her. She was holding two paper plates that were both piled high with pizza.

"Hey, Diana! I hope this doesn't seem weird, but I grabbed you a few slices of pizza," the girl said.

Diana could tell from the eager nervousness in her voice that this girl had a crush on her back in the FAYZ. Based on the oversized Coates Academy sweatshirt that she was wearing, the crush had probably started long before that.

"Hey, I'll never turn down free food," Diana said with a shrug.

"Haha, me neither," the girl said. "But I remembered that you always liked pineapple pizza before the FAYZ, so I thought that I would get you some before it ran out."

"Pineapple..." Diana took the plate and looked down at it with a sad smile on her face.

She hadn't ordered pineapple pizza since the FAYZ had ended. There hadn't been any reason to. She couldn't see the point of ordering it without someone around to torment it.

Diana could feel hot tears welling up in her eyes. She knew that she needed to pull herself together and figure out something to say. She didn't want to be the idiot who started crying over pineapple pizza four years after the FAYZ had ended.

"Ugh, I don't know why I'm such a mess. I just haven't had pineapple pizza in a while," Diana said. "No, that's stupid. Forget I said that."

"No, it's not stupid," the girl said. "I think we all have our moments like that."

"Thanks, um...I'm sorry what was your name again?" Diana asked.

"Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't introduce myself," the girl said. "My name's Mariah. I thought you might have remembered me from Coates, but I don't know why. It's not like we were friends or anything."

Diana wasn't surprised by that. If Mariah had the same artsy style then as she did now, Diana would have either ignored or made fun of her.

"I know it sounds crazy, but you were always kind of like a celebrity to me during the FAYZ," Mariah continued. "You were always so cool at Coates, and I was so shy. And then after the FAYZ started, everybody knew who you were. I guess thinking about you helped me hold onto the way that I felt before everything changed."

Diana was used to people treating her like a celebrity, but this was a new experience. She had done so many terrible things in the FAYZ that she didn't think that she had a positive impact on very many people aside from Caine. And she was doing her best to keep him out of her mind right now, to avoid getting emotional in the middle of Quinn's party. 

But something was comforting about knowing that she had helped this girl get through the FAYZ, even though she hadn't even known that Mariah existed.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't be going on like this," Mariah said. "I just-"

"It's fine," Diana said. "It really is."

"Thanks," Mariah said, looking down at her feet to hide the fact that she was blushing. "Is there any chance that you might want to..."

"Sit together?" Diana said. "Yeah, that would be nice."


End file.
